The cricketing world may soon go to watch the another course of face-off between Shah Rukh Khan and Sourav Ganguly after the time when Ganguly was involved in Kolkata Knight Riders, a franchise owned by King Khan. Only this time the contention will be experienced in the field of football, for Indian Soccer League (ISL), a city based football league. A Source reported CNN-IBN that both of them are starting to bid for Kolkata franchise and the pair will try hard to make the owning of the dealership.
Another source stated to the media that they will go all the possible ways for it and securing the ownership becomes their first priority. Both Ganguly and Shah Rukh have picked up the tenders.
The Sourav Ganguly vs. Shah Rukh Khan war has been set forth and reached the ‘fever pitch’ since 2009 when Skipper Ganguly got ruled out by coach John Buchanan of KKR, as he was attempting to visit his ‘multiple captain’ theory on the squad. Later, when Ganguly joined Pune Warriors the battle of KKR and PW turn into the battle of Shah Rukh and Ganguly.
The friction has not been retained under the pillow when they both bid for the same franchise and they do not want to give the smallest inch to each other and they want to manage it successfully.
The IMG-Reliance has set the base toll of each franchise at 120 crores INR for the coming 10 year franchise ownership contest. There will be nine cities including Kolkata, Mumbai, Goa, Pune, Guwahati, Kochi, Chennai, Bangalore and Delhi to bid for and eight of them will be chosen. The auction will take place from the first week of April 2014.
Sourav Ganguly has recently been transplanted into a corporate entrepreneur while Shah Rukh has been reigning as a successful businessman too beside his Bollywood career. They both show enthusiasm in the matter of incorporating the two most influential football clubs in Bengal, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. CNN-IBN has separately sounded out the two clubs or so getting them on circuit card for their ISL franchise. But Kolkata’s status as the mecca of Indian football seems to be justified even in conditions of franchise-styled leagues, with CNN-IBN has learnt that three national brands are also in the fray to bid for the enfranchisement.
Another source said that former Indian skipper Sunil Gavaskar is also focusing to own a franchise. The sports marketing firm PMG which he owned has opted for a tender in order to bid for a franchise in ISL auction from IMG-Relience. Though PMG does not clarify for which city they going to call.
The tinsel town heartthrob Ranbir Kapoor, who also has immense interest in soccer has pulled a tender to bid. It won’t be staggering if the celebrities will start out the ownership of various franchises. Other actors like John Abraham and Hrittik Roshan have also showed interest in picking up tenders.
The franchise team Rajasthan Royals even has drawn out a tender. They are aiming for Gwahati franchise. This strategy makes their vision; they want to have a franchise of comparatively lower price and then built up the stigma as one of the Indian Premier League‘s most talked about success stories.
The media corporate Ronnie Screwvala has picked up a tender also to buy a team in ISL.
The fiscal status of the bidders will be sorted during the auction and they bear to present proper plans as well as the growth in the nitty-gritty level for the city are going to wish for.